Anaheim’s long wait ended on April 21, when the Ducks faced the Oilers in Game 1 of the Stanley Cup Playoffs First Round at 7 p.m. PT in Edmonton.
The game was shown locally on KCOP-13 and Victory+ and aired nationally on ESPN2, marking the Ducks’ first postseason hockey in eight years.
For a team that finished third in the Pacific Division at 44-33-6, this was not just a return to the bracket. It was a proof-of-concept for a roster that scored 265 goals, tied the NHL lead with 26 comeback wins and went 16-0-0 when it scored at least five times.
Joel Quenneville said the best part about winning a Cup is trying to win one, and he added that nothing is much different except the vibe. He said the Ducks were going to have to have it. That matters because only 10 players on the current roster had any postseason experience, a sharp contrast with Edmonton, which arrived with plenty of playoff mileage and a power play built to punish mistakes.
Radko Gudas is one of the few Ducks who has been through this before, having reached the Stanley Cup Finals with Florida in 2023. His presence gives Anaheim something it otherwise lacks: a player who has already lived deep into spring hockey and knows how small the margins get once the games start to matter most.
The Oilers had one important question of their own. Leon Draisaitl missed the final 14 games of the regular season with a lower-body injury, and Kris Knoblauch said he expected him sometime during the first round. Knoblauch also said the Oilers would not announce their lineup or lines before the game, leaving one of the series’ biggest details unresolved until puck drop.
For Anaheim, the first test of this new chapter is simple enough to state and hard enough to pass: turn a team built on scoring and comeback wins into one that can survive the tighter, harsher pace of playoff hockey against an opponent that knows exactly how this time of year works.
